


Puncture Wound

by muldersboyishenthousiasm



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Teambuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2017-12-10
Packaged: 2019-02-13 01:15:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12972489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muldersboyishenthousiasm/pseuds/muldersboyishenthousiasm
Summary: Mulder and Scully go on a teambuilding exercise. Light Mulder torture. Prompt inspired.





	Puncture Wound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Baroness_Blixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baroness_Blixen/gifts).



Prompt: puncture wound

Two weeks ago, all the field agents available had received a notice through the mail announcing them they had been enrolled in a teambuilding activity. All ten pairs of FBI partners had been obliged by their respective AD to participate. 

Walter Skinner had asked for Dana Scully's cooperation to make sure his senior X-Files agent would go to the seminar. Mulder had put his foot down the same day and declared he wasn't interested in going. He had even enrolled the Gunmen’s help in trying to make her believe he’d contracted a mysterious illness after one of their nights out. Frohike had immediately broken under Scully’s icy glare when she had threaten to stop visiting them for the next six months. When Mulder realised his plan wouldn't work, he had resigned himself to the worse. His partner noticed he had been restless for the two weeks prior to the fatidic weekend.    


He had struggled to find a case that would have required his specific skills and kept him from going to the 'Sunny Teamwork Camp'. But it was to no avail, for fourteen days later, he was standing amongst nineteen of his colleagues, listening to an over enthusiastic teenager wearing an Indian Guide-like uniform.    


‘I'm so glad A.D. Skinner got you all to accept to go on this camping trip!’ the young man said joyfully. He raised a finger to his lips as if preparing to tell them a secret. 'Oh! But it's not a simple camping trip. This adventure, my friends… is a team-building exercise!'    


Mulder dipped his head to murmur to his partner. 'Maybe we'll get to build you that furniture tower after all, Scully.’   


The red haired woman at his side smiled to herself and nodded. She had practically dragged him to the office that morning. He had tried extricating himself from the situation, but she'd held fast and remained deaf to his protests. After having gritted her teeth through the first half hour of the car trip with moody Mulder onboard, Scully had finally given up. She had abruptly pulled over on the highway, taking them both by surprise. Her passenger had glared at her with a frightened look on his face. 

‘Mulder, I swear to God, if you don't quit your complaining right now, you're going to the camp on foot.’

He was ready to reply but she interrupted him firmly.

‘It's either this or I'm shooting you in the other shoulder.’

She had watched him rub the spot where she had hit him that night. He winced and decided against answering her. She had won the battle. Few seconds later she was driving with a disgruntled Mulder once more. But this time he was less vocal.

He had kept mumbling the occasional grumpy comment under his breath until she had turned on the radio and his complaining became background noises.   


'The first exercise consists in building the camp. We'll sleep two nights in the tents you were lent when you entered the site,' the kid pointed at long bags sitting at his feet. 

'First, you will leave all telecommunication devices in this box. No cellphones, pagers, GPS or any other electronic devices will be allowed for the duration of this weekend. You will have to rely on your capacity to cooperate and orientate yourselves using the positions of the stars and the moss on the tree barks.'   


The ten pairs of FBI partners walked towards the basket to deposit their cellphones and grab a bag containing a two-places camping tent. Then they went back to their places, waiting for the kid's next instructions.

Scully watched the other agents  nodding emphatically, clearly enthralled by the idea of playing Girl and Boy Scouts for the two coming days. She even surprised herself for being interested in this turn of events. She stole a glance at Mulder and bit her lip to keep from laughing. His face was the perfect image of a stubborn child forced into giving up his toys and having to go play outside. He even had the same pouty puppy look he always gave her when she would sit behind the wheel because she would take the car keys before he could.    


When everyone had put their phones in the basket and that each team had chosen a bag, the boy continued.

'So, the next step will be to get those tents up and then we'll see if we can go fish. Trout for dinner?  Who's ready?'   


Scully turned to her partner and tugged on his sleeve. She watched him roll his eyes and patted him on the arm.    


'Come on, Mulder. It can't be that bad. Were you not a Boy Scout back in the days?' she asked.    


'For the record, I was an Indian Guide, not a boy scout,’ he corrected in his professorial tone. ‘Gee, Scully! I hate these tent building. The sticks never stand up straight as they should and it gets horribly cold during the night.'

'But at least we have sleeping bags this time.'   


‘I hope these are at least queen sized bags. You can't say you've done a team-building exercise if you've not shared sleeping arrangements as well. In this case… sleeping bags,’ he whispered to her while waggling an eyebrow. 

She rolled her eyes to the sky then spied an expression of pride on his handsome features. 

He was smiling for the first time in so many days and she was happy with these developments. She tangled her fingers discreetly with his and got him to follow her to the spot they were assigned to install their tent.    


The other teams were already done unpacking the bags and some of them even had begun sliding the metallic rods through the holes to bring the tent up. 

The team building leader was observing with interest the different dynamics of the duos in action. Despite his young age, it wasn't the first seminar he had given. He could easily identify which partnerships were already functioning well,  would require more work and which were simply lost causes. He rarely came across teams, especially teams made of both a female and a male partner, whose silent communication was so smooth. He was wondering why their boss had so insisted on their coming. The boy thought about trying to challenge them as much as he could during the next days to strengthen even more their bond.   


Meanwhile, Mulder was trying to figure out how to get the pegs in place. For her part, Scully was unfolding the tent and started sliding the sticks through the right slits and once done, she solicited her partner's help. 

‘Hey, Mulder?’

‘Mmh?’

Scully could see how concentrated he was on finding out the solution to what was puzzling him.

‘The sticks keep folding back on themselves,’ she explained.

He raised his eyes and squinted at her from the other side of the tent. 

‘I told you, Scully. This sucks.’

‘We just need to find a way to get them to stand still until we can have them inside the tent. I mean until they slide through and through in the right position.’

He nodded absently. She grinned from ear to ear.

‘You should know this,’ she began ‘how do you get a stick to stand up and stay upright until you've slid it where you need it to be?’

‘Oh, miss Scully, if I'd known how witty you could get, I'd bring you camping more often,’ he teased her back.   


After a few more having tried creative ways of getting their metallic poles in place, they achieved their goal and were able to prepare lifting their tent up. They counted to three to simultaneously make it stand. After twenty minutes of struggling to figure out how to build it, the main frame was ready to be fixed to the ground. It was Mulder’s task.   


'I can't find the hammer,' Mulder declared suddenly. 'If we can't fix the pegs, we'll risk having our new home blown away at the first wind that'll rise.'   


Scully frowned. He interrupted her before she could even form a word.   


'I recommend we abandon everything and go find ourselves a nice cozy motel. I'll pay for it. Some place you could even take a bath if you want!' Mulder offered curtly.

‘Are you trying to bribe me with a date to a 5-star hotel?’ Scully replied mischievously.

‘A… A da...te?’ he stuttered. 

Scully had closed her eyes.

‘Luxurious accommodations, bubble baths, AC, silky sheets, dinner with candles… And of course, champagne!’

‘Would I need to make all of this come true to make you accept going back to DC?’ he hesitantly asked.

‘Am I that a complicated woman, Mulder?’

She had opened her eyes and was shaking her head. She was ready to go continue her tasks when she heard him discreetly murmured.

‘A date with Scully… How could I possibly even dream about this?’   


Scully sighed and went to sift out the canvas bag and found what she was looking for. She put the hammer in her spooky partner's hands and went back to inflating the incredibly thin mattresses they just received. It was obvious these were meant for short camping trips. One could not imagine sleeping on them and waking up and having to nurser a bad case of stiff neck for the following week.   


While his partner was working inside the tent, Mulder was struggling with the pegs and hammer. His job was to drive the wooden pieces into the soft earth. He couldn't help but let a displeased groan escape and bent over to retrieve another peg. These were wooden pegs and it was obvious Scully and him weren't the first to use them.    


Scully busied herself with making the beds as comfortable as they could get. She untied the straps from the tightly rolled sleeping bags. She proceeded in opening them completely to ventilate as much as possible.    
She was trying to hang the electric lamp on the hook at the top of the tent when she heard him yelp in pain.     


She felt her heart skip a beat and erupted from the tent in Dr. Scully mode. She was almost out of breath after having circled the tent and found him sitting directly on the ground holding his left hand tightly to his chest.   


‘You okay, Mulder?’ she asked without really waiting for an answer.    


She dropped to her knees and insisted that he showed her his hand. He refused. She could see blood running through his fingers and staining his beige khakis. The other agents surrounding them had not even noticed that their colleague was hurt. They kept on preparing their encampment.    


‘What happened, Mulder?’ Scully said while trying to get a good look at his hand.   


‘Nothing.’   


‘Mulder…’ she replied.   


His eyes finally met hers and she was almost certain she could see unshed tears in them.    


‘Come inside the tent we'll tend to that hand,’ she tried to reassure him.   


‘I'm okay, Scully. Don't worry. I'm okay,’ he protested mechanically. 

‘ Humour me,’ she told him tenderly.

She stood up, put a hand on his head and stroke the brown messy strands before disappearing in the tent. Mulder closed his eyes and breathed in before joining her inside. She zipped the tent after him and they sat on their opened sleeping bags. He noticed she had brought with her her personal first aid kit, the same one she always carried when they were on cases for her accident prone partner.   


'What happened?’ she gently asked.   


'I don't know. I just hurt myself. Again. Stupidly,' he nodded his head discouraged.   


Scully at last could inspect the two puncture wounds in her partner's hand. It did not seem serious enough to threaten his life, but they were quite deep and had bled a lot. She understood why he was swallowing back tears earlier. The skin around the open wound was red and puffy. It was still oozing blood and there seem to be some shards stuck in it. She would need to take them out with great care.    


Scully first rinsed the puncture skin with peroxide and took her personal pair of tweezers and tried to get out the two shards that had pierced his hand and teared opened the surface of the skin. She saw him wince but he didn't complain as much as she would have expected.   


'Did you get that injury trying to fix the pegs on the tent?'

'I don't know exactly. The first time I hit the peg with the hammer than the second time I hit it square in the middle. But at the third hit… I guess I missed the spot,' he finally explained dejectedly.    


She cleaned the wound and put an antibiotic ointment on the puncture wounds and protected the injury with a bandage. Mulder scrutinised her effective bandaging technique and then watched her with attention when she put her bag away.    


'We'll clean it tomorrow. It's still a superficial wound so it should heal rapidly,' she declared.    


Her partner looked disappointed. She touched his forehead to comfort him. Scully put her fingers under his chin and forced him to make eye contact with her. She looked in his charming hazel eyes and understood.   


'Mulder?'   


'Yeah?'   


'Are you disappointed because we won't have to leave the seminar?' she teased.   


'Sculleeee,' he whined. He gave her his best kicked puppy look. 'Can't you just write me a doctor's prescription or something?'   


'I can prescribe you an autopsy but that's not really what you want,' she joked.   


'Still… sounds better than a weekend at 'Sunny Camp of Sunny Joy Planet.'’

She rolled her eyes and stood up. She checked the time on Mulder's wristwatch.   


'Come on, we've got ten minutes left to finish up preparing our installations for the night.'   


'But…'   


'I heard that tomorrow we're going canoeing. You wouldn't deny me this pleasure, would you, Mulder?'   


It was his turn to roll his eyes to the sky. He waited for her to exit the tiny tent before smiling to himself and joining her outside.   


This weekend would be quite the adventure indeed, he was sure of it.


End file.
